Millionaire accused of murdering 8-year-old autistic son

Mary Altaffer / The Associated PressPedestrians walk past the entrance to the Peninsula Hotel Friday in New York. Police say an 8-year-old boy was found dead and his socialite mother near death in a room at the luxury Manhattan hotel. The mother, Gigi Jordan, has been charged with second-degree murder.

New York -- Socialite and multi-millionaire Gigi Jordan, who is suspected of killing her autistic 8-year-old son at a New York City luxury hotel and then trying to commit suicide, has been charged with second-degree murder.

Jordan, 49, was charged Saturday at a local hospital where she had been taken after being found slumped on the floor of her room. She was found at the five-star Peninsula Hotel New York on Fifth Avenue with her dead son, Jude, nearby.

Police say the boy and his mother were surrounded by prescription medication. Investigators believe Jordan gave Jude a lethal dose of the pills, including Xanax and Ambien.

In a note found at the scene, Jordan suggested that her son was a rape victim and was "in constant pain," the New York Daily News reported. She was once detained by police in Wyoming after claiming the boy was being molested by devil worshippers, the New York Post reported.

Cheyenne Detective Tom Hood told the New York Post that Gigi Jordan wrote letters to a sex crimes investigator more than two years ago saying that her autistic son was being abused by a cult.

Hood says that when she flew to the area, they detained her for psychiatric evaluation but then released her. An examination of the boy showed no signs of abuse.

The New York Post estimated Jordan, a former pharmaceutical company executive, has a net worth of about $100 million.